Seth,
A good set of questions.
>I'm not getting how that in an adjective clause--a clause modifying a noun--is >not a relative pronoun, but is a subordinating conjunction. I'm not sure what >you mean by your use of the term "subordinating conjunction", which I >understand as referring to a word that marks an adverb clause (e.g. because). >DO you simply mean that "that" with a clause following a noun, a clause that >seems to modify the noun, simply marks the dependent status of the clause?
>Also, you say that
>[snip]
>But to address the reasons why "that" simply is not a pronoun, again, consider >the following:
>Rel "that" is always unstressed. Pronominal "that" is stressed.
>Rel "that" never exhibits the plural form "those". Pronominal "that" does.
>Rel "that" can't take a genitive suffix. Pronominal "that" can't either, but >we can get "that one's".
>Rel "that" can't occur after a preposition as its object. Pronominal "that" >can.
>OK: these are features of pronouns; but on the contrary,
>1. Aren't relative pronouns generally unstressed (or are my ears >untutored)?
>2. Relative pronouns "who" and "which" exhibit no inflected plural >form--though they are used for plural reference; and Rel "that" seems to do so >as well ("The book/s that I bought")
>3. Yes, Rel "that" can't take a genitive suffix; so we use "whose" ("The >book that was torn" vs. "The book whose cover was torn")
>4. And, yes, Rel "that" can't appear in the objective case positions; so we >use "which" instead:
>*The play about that we had heard
>The play about which we had heard.
Let me take these one at a time.
1. Yes, wh-pronouns are unstressed in relative clauses. They aren't typically in questions, but they are in RCs. However, the contrast I was making was between "that" as a conjunction and "that" as a pronoun. The former is not stressed and the latter is.
2. Yes, again. The wh-words lost their plurals and case forms, except for "whose" and "whom," in Middle English. But the point here is that if "that" is a pronoun, then it has a plural form "those". None of the wh-words does under any circumstances. We say "those books", but not "the books those I bought". We have to use "that" in the latter case. This is a serious problem for calling relative "that" a pronoun.
3. This seriously begs the question. If "that" is a conjunction, we have an excellent and natural explanation for why it doesn't have a genitive. Conjunctions don't. Nouns and pronouns do. If "that" is a pronoun, then we have to have an explanation for why it doesn't have a genitive. We can't argue that it's because "that" as a demonstrative determiner doesn't either because syntactically a genitive NP fills the determiner slot. Check any of the major reference grammars on that.
4. This also begs the question, but my argument wasn't very strong anyway, since we don't typically say "I saw which on the table".
>So, I still don't understand. Although, historically, "that" was not a >Relative Pronoun, I don't see how it doesn't behave like one now--or enough >like one that it matters. What are the problems that are created by analyzing >it as such?
I think I've handled objections 1-4. If so, the appearance that "that" behaves like a pronoun is the result of a faulty analysis of its behavior and a rejection of the morpho-syntactic facts. Let me note again that this analysis of "that" doesn't originate with me. I expanded on it in my 1976 Language article, but the basic case is made eloquently and in great detail by Otto Jespersen in his A Modern English Grammar on Historical Principles, one of the more important studies of English grammar.
The last time we had this discussion on the list there was also great resistance to the conjunction analysis. No one seriously challenged the morpho-syntactic facts, but people wanted to hold on to the relative pronoun analysis in the face of them and proposed psycholinguistic experiments that can't be performed and gut feeling as reasons for holding on to it. Tradition is very strong in grammar, but in this case, it's wrong. Not that any high school or college student is likely to be harmed by perpetuating this faulty tradition.
Herb
-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar on behalf of Stahlke, Herbert F.W.
Sent: Thu 3/10/2005 10:18 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Cc:
Subject: Re: Question re "That" vs. "Who"
Dick,
There's no question that that-relatives and wh-relatives function similarly, although there is a very subtle and insightful study by Dwight Bolinger titled _That's that_ that discusses the meaning "that" may bring to a relative clause. It's been some time since I read it, but I think I'll have another go at it. It was a very rewarding piece.
The similarity of function, though, is a similarity in clause structure and function. The clauses are modifiers of nouns, that is, have head nouns. They are alike in that they have systematic gaps. Whatever thematic role the embedded noun had in the RC, that spot shows a gap, whether the COMP is "that" or wh-x. The only difference between them is that that-rels have only deletion but wh-rels have deletion and movement. The fact that even the subject position can be empty is demonstrate by island constraint violations in sentences like
*The fries that hamburgers and 0 were served tasted greasy.
That there may be subtle differences in meaning between that-rels and wh-rels is a natural consequence of the fact that both structures exist. This happens when two words arise that are near synonyms. The language finds a way to differentiate them. There will be overlap, but they will be slightly distinct. I've just been dealing with this in another area in a paper I'm just finishing with a couple of grad students. The suffixes -nce and -ncy have a common source in Late Latin present participles like "diligentia". In the 2nd c. the /t/ assibilated producing a pronunciation reflected in the -nc- spelling and in a word like "intelligentsia". But -nce and -ncy now differ in that -nce typically has the meaning of "quality" and -ncy may be either "quality" or "state". The meanings of etymologically identical suffixes are diverging but are not completely distinct. The same is true with that-rels and wh-rels.
But to address the reasons why "that" simply is not a pronoun, again, consider the following:
Rel "that" is always unstressed. Pronominal "that" is stressed.
Rel "that" never exhibits the plural form "those". Pronominal "that" does.
Rel "that" can't take a genitive suffix. Pronominal "that" can't either, but we can get "that one's".
Rel "that" can't occur after a preposition as its object. Pronominal "that" can.
In short. Rel "that" has none of the properties of a pronoun, for the simple reason that it's identical to subordinating conjunction "that". This explanation accounts neatly for the facts. The pronoun analysis presents a whole set of problems that are anomalous.
Herb
Herb,
Still, intuitively, it's hard to see how in the following pair, we are
using "who" and "that" differently.
The boss who hired me ...
The boss that hired me ...
They sure feel like they're interchangeable and performing the same
function. Might it be that they evolved on different historical paths
but that in the mental grammar of the typical present-day speaker of
English have come to be identical in function? If so, wouldn't that
function be that of relative pronoun?
Dick Veit
________________________
Richard Veit
Department of English, UNCW
Wilmington, NC 28403-5947
910-962-3324
-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Stahlke, Herbert F.W.
Sent: Wednesday, March 09, 2005 9:40 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Question re "That" vs. "Who"
Helene,
To expand on my cryptic response to Martha, "that" is the older of the
two ways of starting a relative clause. "Who" doesn't appear in
relative clauses until the 15th century. "That" appears six centuries
earlier. At the time, "that", or its ancestor, was not a pronoun. It
also is not a pronoun in modern English. It is simply a subordinating
conjunction. This addresses directly the question of whether or not
"that" can refer to humans. It's a conjunction. Conjunctions don't
refer to anything. Using "that" in something like "The man that met me
at the airport" is fine because "that" is a subordinating conjunction
and doesn't replace the subject or stand for the subject or refer to
"the man" because only pronouns refer and it's not a pronoun.
The rule that "that" can't refer to humans is a stylistic preference
based on a faulty grammatical analysis. I don't claim to be the first
to argue that relative "that" isn't a pronoun. Otto Jespersen, probably
the greatest grammarian ever in the history of English, argued for it in
great detail in the first half of the 20th century.
I haven't presented the evidence for the conjunction analysis, because
I've done that before on this list, but I'll be glad to if you'd like to
see it.
Herb Stahlke
Another Ball Stater
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